


Unspoken

by Eithe



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love, Prompt Fic, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 14:33:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13549365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eithe/pseuds/Eithe
Summary: She never finds a good moment to tell him.(Watcher Thenali pines, not very subtly.)





	Unspoken

**Author's Note:**

> Written for prompt #38 from [this list](http://teaandinanity.tumblr.com/post/170370747079/i-enjoy-pain-so-38-for-any-romantic-pair-you): “Never mind, the moment’s gone.”
> 
> I would have probably interpreted this one as a humorous prompt, which is why having other people prompt fic is one of my favorite things! I love writing angst, so this was a lot of fun, and it wouldn't have necessarily ever occurred to me to write without prompting. :)
> 
> Thenali is a Deadfire-born explorer and a moon godlike priest of Eothas; while most of that isn't important to the fic, I do hint at most of it.

Thenali nearly says something dozens of times, once she realizes. It shouldn’t be hard, right? It always sounds easy in the tales, anyway. But it’s never the right moment. She can’t say it when he’s offering her support, because she doesn’t owe him warm and squishy feelings in exchange for his kindness. Telling him isn’t a demand that he keep giving time and affection and honesty and humor when she’s collapsing under the weight of everything. It isn’t a demand at all.

It’s meant to be a gift, not an obligation.

Sometimes, like tonight, all she needs is someone to sit with her in silence, and he offers that, too. He stays until she feels like she can hold her own weight again and she pushes herself mostly upright from where she’d been leaning into his shoulder because her head is heavy enough without the added weight of destiny (or very bad luck, or the compound interest on her inherited sins).

She can’t say it now; it wouldn’t sound right.

She smiles, instead, holds it until it feels true, and touches his hand.

“Thank you, Edér.”

He shrugs.

“You’d do the same for me. Have done.”

–

He makes her laugh, constantly, and every time the words nearly trip off her tongue, trailing after the giggles. Every time she closes her teeth just in time. Her faith demands honesty, but this doesn’t stop being true just because she hasn’t said the words out loud.

It’s obvious most of their companions know, or at least suspect. She hasn’t denied it. She can’t, and wouldn’t want to. The oceans are wide, Stalwart is cold, Raedric was mad as a box of rabid weasels, and Thenali, Watcher of Caed Nua, loves Edér Teylecg.

But she can’t (doesn’t want to) say it. So she fills up the silence with other, less important words;

“What’s a pirate’s favorite letter?”

“Kinda thought they were mostly illiterate,” he muses, and she bursts out laughing all over again.

He grins back.

–

“Let me see,” she says, and holds out her hand.

“Nah, it’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

“Edér. Let me see.”

“You know,” he says, giving her his hand, “my mom used almost exactly that tone when me ‘n Woden had gotten in just that little bit more trouble than she was willing to overlook.”

“Don’t pretend,” she says, inspecting the bite, “that it wasn’t just you three times out of four.”

“Woden didn’t let me get in trouble alone very often,” he says, and there’s an undercurrent of something wounded in the tone of his voice that’s so much worse than this little bite. Itumak is careful. History is not.

A little spark of magic burns out the possibility of infection, and she grabs a roll of bandages.

“It’s not as bad as all that,” he protests, and she gives him her best flat look.

“This is not because it needs bandaging, it’s because I’m hoping having something on the hand will remind you not to stick it in Itumak’s mouth.”

“If I’m not supposed to pet him, why is he so soft?”

Thenali shakes her head and gently lifts Auspice from where the cat is draped around her shoulders, depositing her negligible weight in Edér’s lap.

“Here,” she tells him. “Soft and for petting, rather than just soft.”

“Sagani pets him,” Edér says, but it’s not a real objection. Only about a sixth of his attention is still on the conversation; the rest is on the cat, who chirps agreeably and then starts purring like a rockslide.

She watches a moment to be sure, but Edér is actually very good with animals - he’s gentle, and when Auspice’s tail starts twitching, he stops and offers his hand until she butts her head against his palm again.

There are at least five other cats at Caed Nua, and a mess of dogs, two hatchlings, and a pig. She’s going to drop every last one of them in his lap the next time they’re home.

She catches that thought, corrects it.

Caed Nua isn’t home. She was born on a ship and she’s sailed across seas and walked across nations. She doesn’t have a home.

Home is for keeping things, and people, when you find a situation so perfect that even the itch to chase the horizon can’t make you want to leave. She doesn’t have that, never has.

She looks at him again, petting Auspice, and realizes - she might want to.

She doesn’t know  _ how  _ to say that.

–

She does, in fact, persuade two of the dogs to flop down next to Edér after she has deposited seven cats in his lap (there was one more than last time, a stray one of the staff brought with her from Defiance Bay who has taken up patrolling near the woodsman’s hut). They do not all fit on a human lap, and several relocate to nearby furniture, but that doesn’t spoil the effect - ‘the effect’ being a big strapping soldier measuring his considerable length on the floor, covered in animals, and laughing.

She crows, “The mighty warrior lies vanquished! I shall commission a commemorative painting at once. To hang in the great hall, I think.”

He starts to sit up, so she completes the picture by depositing the tiny black wyrm on his head to make a mess of his golden hair.

He’s grinning when he says,

“This isn’t quite what I imagined when people used the phrase ‘mad as a Watcher.’”

“My family, if you ever meet them, will be delighted to inform you that I’ve always been this way.”

It’s familiar, now; she bites the words back again, swallows down the warmth. She’s not even sure why she does it, anymore, except part of her fears it’s just her. If there were anything worth speaking up for, after this long surely he’d have said something himself.

The silence stretches for a moment too long, and he gives her a serious-eyed look that she likes not at all.

“Never mind,” she tells him cheerfully, scooping Lady up into her arms before the beagle can annoy Garnet into scratching her . The moment’s gone, the words no longer tangling in her throat.

There will be another moment. She won’t take that one, either, but there will be more after that.

–

The world heaves, and she falls, and stones fall, too. There’s black-edged agony screaming everywhere she’s not cold and numb.

She regrets so little - something to be thankful for - but she regrets this: Swallowing down words. She’ll never get to speak them, now.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much for reading! Kudos are appreciated and comments are adored. See y'all in Deadfire! :D


End file.
